10 Greatest Female Hard Rock Singers Of All Time

Whenever you talk about the great origins of rock and roll, there's always going to be one side trailing back into the blues.

No matter what kind of rock you play, all of the anguish that comes from great music all comes down to the lowdown crooners from the Mississippi Delta, as they lamented their hard lives, lost loves, and everything in between. While many male rockers tried their hand at the lowly blues tunes, most of them can only do a fraction of what Janis Joplin did so naturally.

From the first minute you heard Joplin's music, this was not a woman who was looking to impress you with her pretty voice. No...this was a woman who was going to exorcise the demons in her soul through the power of song, be it the heartbroken ballad Piece of My Heart or the subtlety of Mercedes Benz. On the other hand, songs like Me and Bobby McGee showed you just how vulnerable someone like that can be, as she leaves her spirit somewhere between the notes.

Living the rock and roll lifestyle to the very fullest, Joplin's more nefarious habits ended up catching up with her when she was found dead of a drug overdose in 1970. While she wasn't with us for very long, the raw emotion on display is why we're still talking about her today.

Thank you, Janis. May you continue to let your voice wail on the other side for years to come.